


Unhonest Man

by rkvian



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Miraith Centric, and you're just desperately trying to hold it together, because you're supposed to be the funny one, but still mostly, that feeling when your mom's in a hospital, the situation's bad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:02:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26283103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rkvian/pseuds/rkvian
Summary: Between the two of them, Mirage is the loud-mouth. He talks and talks, sometimes just to fill the air. It’s something they have in common, the disdain for deafening silence.
Relationships: Mirage | Elliott Witt/Wraith | Renee Blasey
Kudos: 32





	Unhonest Man

**Author's Note:**

> written to [Dabin ft Trove - Light (Acoustic)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLdr5YwXMyM). 
> 
> also i found out someone shared the series into the Miraith reddit! thank you so much to u/bbbbeeeeee from reddit for sharing and Delexia from the Miraith discord for informing me. i hope you guys like this one too. :)

Between the two of them, Mirage is the loud-mouth. He talks and talks, sometimes just to fill the air.

It’s something they have in common, the disdain for deafening silence.

She hates it because it reminded her of Singh’s Lab, and he hates it because it reminded him of what’s left of his family. It’s why she prefers to spend her down time in his bar listening to him tattle about the latest whispers and juicy gossips, rather than stay in her apartment. She wonders, now, if there is an ounce of depth to it when he jokingly admitted loving the sound of his own voice.

Over the many months of working together, it didn’t take long for her to realize the Trickster's need for incessant chatter was part of his façade—of the person that desperately needed Mirage so Elliott can exist in a safe space he kept for himself. 

Wraith is aware he has a mask. She has seen it falter, has seen it crack under pressure, but she has _never_ seen him without it.

They were in his bar less than an hour ago, assuming it was just another post-Apex Games night out. Bangalore, Lifeline, and Gibraltar were present, and despite his pledge never to touch alcohol again, the Medic convinced Crypto to come too. There was the usual bout of shit-talking, back-handed compliments, and discussion of Legends most likely out for a revenge kill. And then, in the middle of nowhere, Mirage got a call and he needed to leave. It sounded like an emergency. He's hurrying to the back room and tossing his work apron in a flash, and she's off her seat and ignoring the bewildered look the rest of their friends were throwing at them. 

_"What if you needed back up?”_ She had asked him, and he had said, _“I don’t,”_ but let her tag along anyway.

Wraith never expected having to watch him rush to the Solace Central Hospital of all places, and talk to a doctor with a formal ‘ _yes, ma'am’_ and ‘ _I understand’_ , ‘ _thank you_ ’, with none of the usual grandeur in his words or gait. 

He led her along quiet halls. It was heartbreakingly obvious he’s been here so many times that he didn't pause to look at floors and room numbers to know he’s heading the right way.

He stopped in front of his mother’s room, opening the door and letting her enter first.

Wraith has heard a lot of things about Evelyn Witt: famous inventor, amazing cook, _the_ Best Mother. She never expected to meet her here, in a spacious but impersonal white room, with none of the things that made her who she is. Her hair was coiffed messily, her clothing a formal dark blue blouse and slacks mussed from her position on the bed with the blanket tucked at her sides. 

Mirage is the loud-mouth, with an aptitude for making light of the situations they find themselves in but right now, he doesn’t move, doesn’t even say a single word. She's the one that pulls the door shut behind them. He steps forward to his mom's side and brushed a hand over hers, as if he was making sure she was alive despite the beeping in the room saying she is.

The ensuing silence is deafening. A minute stretches into two, three, a long five minutes, and she wishes she is as good at words as he is, because he always seems to know what to say when she needs to hear it while she just…nothing.

_Try._

Wraith steps next to him, “What are you thinking about?”

"Mom," He says softly, "She's fully entered middle stage. Doc said she's porgess...progressering, no. Regressing? Fast. That she has five years, _at most_."

Her jaw clenches, “But didn’t Lifeline and Gib mention something about a treatment in the Frontier Corps? Some kind of research making progress? That would work, right?”

“It doesn’t matter.” His voice was bitter when he admits, “She doesn't want it.”

“Why?” 

“She said,” He smiles and it comes out strained but he keeps it on his face anyway, “she’d rather spend the last days of her life doing something important to her than live in hospital rooms or nursing homes. I told her I can take care her but she ain’t hearing it." A scoff, "So, that's that.”

"I see."

"Yeah." He shifts from foot to foot. "You don't have to stay here."

Her head whips to him at the words, and she'll leave if it's what he wants. But she sees the haunted look in his eyes and the set of his jaw, and she knows he's desperately holding himself together, because despite the pomp and bullshit he spouts at people, Mirage has always, _always_ been a private person. He spins wild tales about how he's so cool and perfect, and he definitely dated this one actress you're talking about and that lingerie model over there yeah, but he keeps Elliott Witt and everything that came with it behind lock and key.

"It’s just—" Elliott's throat bobs when he swallows thickly, “well this isn't exactly... If you want to, I mean—you don’t have to stay here.”

And terror washes over her shoulders because it was him and that forced smile underneath the Mirage Voyage all over again, where the world was cold and pallid, only he couldn't laugh this one away.

What did she do that time?

She left didn't she? 

He brushed it off like the conversation he unwittingly broadcasted to her and Path was nothing, and she nodded because it was his business. Then she regretted it. Still regrets it to this day.

Wraith inhales, gathering her courage, and chooses differently.

“I don’t have anywhere to go, you know,” She tells him, shrugging a shoulder, “You’re not in the bar and no one can else can seem to get the appletini right.”

He snorts, and it’s more to humor her attempt at easing the mood than finding it funny, but she takes it anyway. She moves before the hesitation could set into her bones, leaning against him and wrapping an arm awkwardly around his plane of shoulders. 

“Elliott?”

The name makes his eyes widen. His eyebrows furrows, and he's hesitating when he says in a small voice, “Renee?”

“I’m not going to leave if it’s okay with you.” She tells him, “Because I told you I have your back too.”

He takes a sharp breath, and when he exhales he sags against her side and gives in to the touch, the mask between Mirage and Elliott falling away completely. He hugs her tight, and she can feel the shaking in his body he's trying to contain. Fear, of his mom dying, of being left alone, and grief, and this silence. It's overwhelming, this feeling of helplessness, and it's nothing, she knew, compared to having to watch what remained of his family waste away in front of his eyes.

Still, he doesn’t say anything and simply holds it in.

Wraith thinks it’s her turn to fill this silence now, so, in between the hours they're on the visitors' seat waiting for Evelyn Witt to wake up, she tells him so many stories, about her, about the people she encountered, and about the places she still wanted to go to.

**Author's Note:**

> i had to sneak post this one cause draft expires on October 4th...the same day i get home, so might edit again if i find errors. you guys stay safe out there. :)
> 
> thank you for reading!♡


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